She denounced the eviction of militants occupying a village to prevent the expansion of a coal mine. According to the government, Germany needs it to deal with the energy crisis, due to the halt in deliveries of Russian gas, on which it was heavily dependent.
“The science is clear: we have to keep the carbon in the ground,” Greta Thunberg said on Friday. The Swedish environmental activist is traveling to Lützerath, near Aachen, Germany. She came to denounce the expulsion of activists settled in this abandoned village to prevent the expansion of a nearby coal mine.
To deal with the energy crisis, particularly in the context of the war in Ukraine, the German government concluded an agreement last October with the German energy company RWE: in exchange for the closure of its coal-fired power stations in 2030 instead of 2038, the company is authorized to extend its operation to Lützerath.
“Germany is making a fool of itself,” said Greta Thunberg.
“Police brutality”
For more than two years, several hundred demonstrators have occupied Lützerath. A recent court ruling authorized their deportation, which began this week. According to ReutersGreta Thunberg denounced the “police violence” during the intervention of the police.
For his part, a spokesperson for the Aachen police welcomed “the fact that a large number of activists have decided to leave the area peacefully and without resistance”, reports CBSNews.
The 2,000 inhabitants of the village left after being expropriated by the mine operators. Since then, the premises have been occupied by climate activists from all over Germany who denounce ecological heresy and the failure of Berlin’s climate policy.
“The People Rise”
Greta Thunberg has announced that she will join a protest scheduled for Saturday to show ‘what people power looks like, what democracy looks like – only when government and corporations do this, destroying the environment , the people rise”.
The neighboring mine, controlled by RWE, is an open pit 200 meters deep and as large as the city of Lyon. To exploit the lignite (coal) reserves below Lützerath, the company began erecting a fence about a kilometer around the village. It thus plans to demolish the houses and the streets there once it is cleared of the demonstrators.
